Should be a slam dunk in court, they were foolish to let it tick over the small claims limit though.
what is the limit?
£10k
ah I thought you meant a time period, gotcha thanks
40 weeks to repair the elevator is ridiculous, and it still hasn’t been fixed in over a year.
Man that van is probably fucked now too, letting it sit in the same place for that long has potential for some serious issues, notably rats eating wiring harnesses and dead fuel in the system.
It’s electric, might need new tires and hopefully no rodents.
Hopefully the battery has a bit of charge. It may need a check for usability if it’s not used for so long
Can’t report it as stolen? It’s literally stolen at this point the owner is unable to make use of it. I think 40k is a bit low for damages. Cost of new vehicle plus cost of the rental plus lost wages or sales.
The owners for many planes nicked by the russian airlines had a similar issue. The insurance said “I can see it on flight tracker its not stolen”. The owners that rented it to them havent seen the plane since the start of the Ukrainian conflict and have lost effectively the control. They aren’t getting there fees paid and are paying the loan on the multi million £ aircraft.
It’s not stolen. He gave it to them. Stolen, legally, means taken without permission. They took it with permission.
At that point, where they haven’t returned it, it’s a civil matter where he should have gone to a court and got a court order ordering the return of the vehicle as well as damages for the time it was missing.
